Rwanda is famous for its gorilla trekking tours opportunities in the Virunga Mountains. This is where Dian Fossey researched and habituated mountain gorillas in the 1960s. Although gorilla trekking is a once-in-a-lifetime experience, the country has a lot more to offer. In fact, if gorilla trekking is beyond your budget, Rwanda is still worth visiting as an up-and-coming destination offering primate walks, volcano hikes and bird-watching in Volcanoes National Park.
The unique opportunity to see gorillas in their natural habitat is unforgettable, some even say life changing. Encounters with gorillas as they go about their daily lives are carefully managed, with expert trackers and guides leading small groups of tourists up bamboo-covered slopes to spend a precious and awe-inspiring hour just a few feet away from the gentle creatures.
There are twelve gorilla families living in the Volcanoes National Park, which are fully habituated, with a few others habituated solely for scientific research. The groups, or troops, consist of at least one silver back along with several females and youngsters.
They are constantly monitored and protected by park rangers, with each group coming into contact with tourists for a strict maximum of one hour per day. Eight tracking permits are issued per troop per day, meaning the encounter is as intimate and as unobtrusive as possible. With only 96 permits available each day in Rwanda, it is highly recommended to book in advance
Visitors gather at the Volcanoes National Park headquarters in Kinigi at 7am, and are allocated a family group on the day according to fitness levels, as well as being briefed on protocols and rules for visiting the gorillas. Hikes up to their various locations can last anything from 30 minutes to four or more hours. Porters are available to carry backpacks and cameras, as well as to offer a helping hand along the route.
Take this chance to trace the footsteps of Dian Fossey, her tomb is a 30-minute drive from the park headquarters and then two- or three-hours hike through the forest, to above 3,000m altitude. After all this is done take up the culture tour.
The Rwandan culture includes not only the population of Rwanda but people in neighbouring states, particularly Congo and Uganda, who speak the Kinyarwanda language. The important ethnic divisions within Rwandan culture between Hutu, Tutsi, and Twa are based on perceptions of historical group origins rather than on cultural differences. All three groups speak the same language, practice the same religions, and live interspersed throughout the same territory; they are thus widely considered to share a common culture, despite deep political divisions.
Rwanda rises from relatively flat plains in the east along the Tanzania border to steep mountains in the west along the continental divide between the Congo and Nile rivers. From the continental divide, the land drops sharply to the shores of Lake Kivu, which forms most of Rwanda’s border with Congo. A range of high volcanoes forms Rwanda’s northwest border. The mountainous topography continues in the North Kivu region of Congo, where almost half of the population identifies as Rwandan. A concentration of Kinyarwanda – speaking Tutsi, known as the Banyamulenge, lives in the high plains and mountains above Lake Tanganyika in South Kivu. The Bufumbira region of southwest Uganda is also Kinyarwanda speaking.
Rwanda traces its origins to one of the many small kingdoms that emerged in the Great Lakes region of Central Africa beginning five hundred years ago. Land pressures throughout the densely populated region encouraged increasing political centralization, particularly among cattle-raising people, who feared the loss of pasture land to encroaching cultivation.
The kingdom of Rwanda was founded in the sixteenth century in what is today eastern Rwanda, and then moved west to modern central Rwanda, where it developed a unifying social system and a strong army and began to expand, incorporating neighbouring kingdoms and chieftaincies through conquest or alliance.
A complex system emerged, based on political and economic ties rather than shared cultural identity. In the central kingdom, power was centralized and an ethnic division between Hutu, Tutsi, and Twa became well developed. A system of cattle vassalage bound local communities together and tied them to the monarchy.
Get to know about their culture concerning food. Rwandan food is quite simple, with beans, bananas, sweet potatoes, potatoes, and sorghum being the most common foods. Dairy products are also widely consumed, particularly a traditional drink of curdled milk. Those who can afford to do so also eat meat, primarily beef, goat, and chicken. Sorghum and banana beers are common as well.
Rwandans traditionally eat food in public settings only for ceremonial purposes, but otherwise eat only in the home. In recent years, the taboo on eating in public has diminished significantly, and restaurants have appeared in most urban areas. While the system of clans has diminished sharply in importance in Rwanda, most Rwandans will still not eat the totemic animals associated with their clans.
Go for the Gorilla Naming Ceremony; an interesting festival worth attending, the Gorilla Naming Ceremony is held every year in Kiningi. This ceremony is influenced by a similar one for humans during which all members of the local Rwanda community recommend names for a new-born child. This is a very and interesting event that is spearheading the conservation of the mountain gorillas and after it you can experience the gorilla trekking tours in Rwanda‘s Volcanoes National Park.
In this version, it is the park guides who do the suggesting and ultimately choose the names of all the newly born gorillas. The ceremony is characterized by great displays of music and traditional dance and travelers who attend the festival can even choose to sponsor a gorilla if they like.
The Rwanda Mini Film Festival held annually in March allows amateur film makers from around Rwanda to showcase their talents. Entry is open to everyone, including students, professors, novices and established filmmakers, who are shown in several different categories.
The festival takes place in many different venues across Kigali so interested travelers will have to keep an eye out for schedules closer to the time. The event is a great one to attend as the short films tend to highlight issues of people on the ground and provide great insight into the country. These and many more are part of the cultural encounters in Rwanda.
